A Separation Like No Other
by TheAsgardianQueen
Summary: One-shot about the sad love story of Steve and Peggy. Third POV about both of them. Rated T for language. Enjoy and please review!


**A/N: I hope everyone enjoys this. The first section is about Steve and the second about Peggy. Sorry if it's a bit of a downer or if Peggy is a bit OOC! I'm still new at this so I'd appreciate a review! Rated T for language. **

**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Just this laptop. All rights go to Marvel.**

Captain America. That's who everyone liked. That's who was on the posters and the lunch boxes. That's who was in the papers back in his day. Never was it Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers was just the kid who got beat up in Brooklyn alleys. But Captain America! He was a war hero. A savior of the world. Sometimes Steve felt that they were two different people. And one of them was of no importance.

It wasn't like that for the other Avengers. Their real names were always being tossed around, unlike his. Of course no one knew much about Natasha and Clint and if they did they'd probably wind up with an arrow through their chest. However, Dr. Banner was a brilliant scientist and Thor not only the center of an entire mythology but also was heir to the throne of an alien planet. And Stark was a genius. And a billionaire. And a playboy. And a philanthropist...

Sometimes it seemed like no one cared about Steve Rogers. Not even in the 40's did they care. It was all about the hero of America. The star-spangled man with a plan (he cringed remembering that nickname). Well, actually, a few had cared. One of them was Peggy Carter, his one and only love.

Ah, Peggy. One name to stay tucked away in his heart for all of his life. He missed her so much. Though it had been over two years since he had been found by SHIELD, he still found himself sub-consciously tearing up as the memory of her played through his mind. He remembered exactly the way she looked. The way she smiled. The way she acted when she was in full military style. He remembered their precious moments together. The second they first laid eyes on each other. Her face when he came out shirtless after getting the serum. Her denting his brand new shield with a handgun. Oh, he simply adored her.

Mixed up in all the sometimes-tearful-sometimes-pleasant reminiscing, was a bit of doubt. He figured that he made the right choice to go under. He had saved lives, had he not?

But there was that one part that was so unlike him. The little sliver of selfishness. The part that said "To hell with heroics! I'm going home to my girlfriend". But of course that wasn't him. He had made the right decision. Right? But he couldn't help but feel guilty.

He'd left her and he'd never see her again. Because this wasn't what you would call a long distance relationship. It wasn't distance, it was time. The one thing you couldn't cross. The one thing you couldn't communicate through. It was a separation like no other.

She had asked him to the Stork club. It would have been the best evening of his life. He wouldn't have had to deal with adjusting to a new and completely different time period. He wouldn't have to deal with all this alien world crap. Granted, she obviously understood what he had to do but he could never shake the feeling that he had given up too easily. She had said to be there at eight. He was about seven decades late.

His current love life? Non-existent for the most part. Which is kind of funny considering how many psychotic fangirls would love to date him. People (meaning Tony and Natasha) often told him he needed to get a girlfriend from this century. Oh, but he wasn't ready. He was not sure that he'd ever be. He was still waiting for the right partner. But she was long gone.

He often wondered about her life after he "died". He hoped she had lived well. That she had had a good career. That she had even found a husband (he told himself he wouldn't be mad). That she had never, ever forgotten him.

He dedicated everything he did to her. During the Battle of New York he fought for her. His love and passion could be credited with making up a lot of the power that made him Captain America.

Using this incredible tool Stark had showed him (he believed it was called the Internet) he had researched her but hadn't found any information about her life.

He had managed to find where her grave was, however. He went there as frequently as he could, bringing flowers and apologizing profusely. The one thing he hoped most about Peggy was that she had forgiven him.

** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=Linebreak-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=- **

Her life was never the same without him. The days after the crash, she didn't speak to a soul. Luckily, that ass Colonel Phillips left her alone. She just sat on the edge of her bed and, well, tried to breath. After the initial shock, she didn't shed a single tear. She just sat.

She barely had a coherent thought the whole time. It was like a repetitive film of her just staring around feeling utterly lost. What bothered her most was that they hadn't found him yet. He wouldn't even get a proper burial. "But it's only been a few days", she told herself. "Howard is looking. He found the Tesseract. He'll find Steve".

It was Saturday morning when she got herself together. "Steve wouldn't want me to be like this", she told herself. So she waited until 7:30. She applied her makeup carefully and picked out her most elegant dress. It was the red one she'd worn the evening he got back from rescuing the captured soldiers.

Taking a deep breath, she left her room for the first time in several days. Promptly at 8:00, she strolled into the Stork club. She sat down by herself, ignoring the stares from those idiotic men that frequented the place. She couldn't help but check her watch every few minutes. Now it was 8:15. She sighed. Of course, Steve was late.

Peggy had respected Dr. Erskine and still mourned his life of course, but she kept thinking that it was all this super-soldier bullshit that had torn them apart. She loved that scrawny asthmatic just as much, if not more than the Steve Rogers that had become "Captain America". No matter if he was a super-soldier, a regular soldier, or just a regular person she would have loved him. But of course, he had to enlist. He had to catch the eye of Erskine. And he had to fly his stupid damn plane into an iceberg.

Eventually, she got tired of it all. She kept ordering drinks and fighting the urge to cry. Normally, she would never get drunk like this, but nothing was normal anymore.

After a while, she just observed all the happy, dancing couples with quickly building envy. Several fairly handsome men asked her to dance, but she politely declined. No one asked why. And if they had, she knew what she'd have said. That there was only one right partner for her, and he wasn't here now.

And he would never be here. Not on any night. The song changed to a slow, mournful tune. And she couldn't take that. She cried. Harder then she ever had before. She tried to do so quietly but there were still stares. It wasn't as if she cared, these people couldn't understand how big her loss had been.

She left the Stork with flushed cheeks, teary eyes, and a significant amount of wooziness. She woke up Sunday with a hell of a hangover, but the next day she went back to work and continued her military career, as she did for the rest of her life.

Peggy Carter was still as strong as ever. But a small part of her had died with Steve. She didn't date again. That didn't mean she didn't live a full life though. In the darkest of times, the memory of him kept her going. She dedicated her life and everything she did to him.

They never found him that she knew. But she never did let that stop her from doing everything she ever wanted. It was all for him. She thought about him all the time, fantasizing about what their lives would have been like. And of course this brought her down some, just thinking about that "what if?". The biggest one of her life. What if she had convinced him to find a safe landing space? What if she had done something other than just sit around waiting for news? She knew Steve wouldn't want her to blame herself but that never stopped the shred of guilt.

So, she turned the guilt into hope. Hope that maybe the serum had preserved him. She couldn't afford to think like that but she did. This hope fueled her. It was her life force.

She died knowing that she had lived a full life in the name of Steve Rogers. With the hope that one day he would be found. As she grew old and passed on, one thought never left her mind: "I still love you, Steve".

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